Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., apologized for a litany of failings at a briefing at the Japan National Press Club,
the
New York Times
reported:
Toyota was shamefully unprepared for the global economic crisis and now is a step away from “capitulation to irrelevance or death,” said Mr. Toyoda, the grandson of the carmaker’s founder. The company, he added, is “grasping for salvation.”
Toyoda — who also apologized for a fatal crash possibly due to oversized floor mats in Toyota’s Lexus models, the need to cease production at a California plant, the failure to make cars that excite Japanese consumers and the company’s lack of profitability — followed a Japanese tradition of public apologies, the
Times
article noted.
Yet given how few words of contrition have been spoken in the past year by chief executives whose companies have lost billions, asked for government aid or simply gone bankrupt, Mr. Toyoda’s comments seemed striking…. The appointment of Mr. Toyoda, who took helm at the automaker in June, is seen as an attempt by Toyota to return to its roots, after a period of what some have called recklessly fast expansion overseas, and into bigger vehicles like SUVs. He repeatedly talks of his grandfather, company founder Kiichiro Toyoda, who “would himself go to the scene to fix Toyota cars that broke down” — and the need for Toyota to stay small enough to care about individual consumers.
(Source:
New York Times,
Oct. 2, 2009.)
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